Members of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) shared a Climate Action Commitment at the fifty-seventh IFLA World Congress that took place in Penang, Malaysia and online in August.
The commitment is a collaborative initiative by the federation’s 77 international membership organisations and was created to support the sector’s role in addressing the climate and ecological emergencies and to support the built environment communique for the upcoming COP26 summit in Glasgow in November. The statement was co-authored by representatives of IFLA member organizations, including AILA members Martin O’Dea and Verity Campbell, and the IFLA Climate Change Working Group, a committee that includes Kotchakorn Voraakhom of Bankgok-based practice Landprocess (working group chair), AILA president Claire Martin (representative of IFLA Asia-Pacific) and landscape architect and researcher Farimah Sadat Jamali (representative of IFLA Middle East).
The six key areas for actions presented in the commitment are: advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals; attaining global net zero carbon emissions by 2040; enhancing capacity and resilience of livable cities and communities; advocating for climate justice and social wellbeing; learning from cultural knowledge systems; and galvanising climate leadership.
“As landscape architects we can make a tremendous difference to climate change and to climate action through our work so thinking globally but acting locally is critical,” said IFLA President and founding director of Adelaide practice, Oxigen, James Hayter.
“Landscape architects are very critical in providing solutions for climate change because we stand as a bridge between the natural and built environment,” added Sunday Julius Abuje, representative of IFLA Africa on the IFLA climate change working group.
The IFLA World Council is made up of 77 member national associations from around the globe. Along with the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA), other associations that have formally ratified the climate action commitment include the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects (NZILA) and the Chilean Institute of Landscape Architects (ICHA). Collectively, these organisations represent over 70,000 licensed landscape architects across the globe. IFLA has stated that it is now collaborating with its global membership and related disciplines to define achievable and actionable outcomes for delivering on the commitment.
To view the IFLA Climate Action Commitment in full, go here.
